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Landmarks and Gold Fever

Chimney Rock was one of the best-known landmarks on the Oregon and Mormon Trails. About 350,000 pioneers passed by Chimney Rock. Fur trader Warren A. Ferris left the oldest known written description of Chimney Rock. On May 26, 1830, his party reached " ‘Nose Mountain,’ or as it is more commonly called, the ‘Chimney,’ a singular mound, which has the form of an inverted funnel." Joseph Hackney, a "Forty-Niner" on his way to the California gold fields, described Chimney Rock ... Read more

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Conflicts Among the Tribes & Settlers

There were many Native American tribes living on the Great Plains, competing for scarce resources. Of course, the various tribes came into conflict with each other.

The Lakota (or Sioux) is actually a broad group of people that includes the seven bands of the Western (or Teton) Lakota, the Dakota (Yankton and Yanktoni) and the Nakota (Santee). This group of tribes lived in the Plains for only a part of their known history. The Lakotas originally lived in the northern woodlands. ... Read more

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Searching for Shelter

When settlers first moved onto the land, they needed shelter immediately. For a few days, they may have stayed in their wagons or a tent. But many soon built a temporary, one-room building called a cabin. A cabin is simply a quickly built one-room dwelling that can be made of any material, including logs, lumber, stone, or sod.

If you had a hill on your claim, you might construct a dugout. By digging into the hill, you immediately had a back ... Read more

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Building a Sod House

To build a sod house, you needed the right kind of grass — grass that had densely packed roots that would hold the soil together. So, Nebraska settlers would search for fields of buffalo grass, little blue stem, wire grass, prairie cord grass, Indian grass, and wheat grass.

The next task was to cut the sod into bricks. Originally, this was a difficult job done with a spade, one brick at a time. But in the mid-1880s, a new kind of ... Read more

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The Civil War Connection

When the 37th Congress met on July 1, 1861, members returned to an unfinished capitol building, several unfinished laws, and news of the first battles of the Civil War. But even during those awful times, three major laws were passed that affected the history of Nebraska. Why did Congress and President Abraham Lincoln turn their attention to homesteading, the creation of land grant colleges, and the transcontinental railroad in a time of war?

Before the Civil War, Northern states had wanted ... Read more

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The End of the Bison

The change in the Nebraska landscape was dramatic. In just a few short years, cattle replaced the American bison as the leading, cloven-hoofed, grass-eating mammal on the Great Plains. In 1850, millions of bison ranged the grasslands and were the main natural resource for the region’s American Indians.

In 1868, the steel rails of the transcontinental railroad created a barrier that bison did not like to cross. That divided the great herd into northern and southern herds.

When the great trail drives ... Read more

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The Ponca Trail of Tears

After decades of broken treaties, the Ponca continued to suffer from attacks by the Sioux, terrible weather conditions, and lack of financial support from the U.S. Government. In 1875, A.J. Carrier, the Ponca agent, visited President Grant in Washington about moving the Ponca to the Indian Territory. Grant agreed to the move if the Ponca were willing to move. Carrier stated that the Ponca would be better off moving and he returned to the Ponca reservation to confer with the ... Read more

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Range Management as a Science

Essie Davis was part of a new trend – a more scientific approach to ranching. Range management is the handling of grasslands where cattle graze in order to maintain and increase both plant and animal production. Proper range management is crucial to successful ranching, and so, it is not surprising that Nebraska is where it was born.

The story of range management began in the late 1800s at the University of Nebraska. Charles Edwin Bessey was a botanist (an expert in ... Read more

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The Army Restores Order

City and state officials began asking for federal troops to come to Omaha while the riot was still building — as early as 6:20 p.m. on the evening of September 28th, more than four hours before Brown was killed. But, because the requests were directed to both local Army posts, Fort Crook and Fort Omaha, and to the War Department in Washington, the signals were confusing. The Army intervention proceeded slowly at all levels.

Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Wuest, commander of Fort ... Read more

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Citizenship for Native Veterans

During World War I, about 9,000 American Indians served in the armed services. They fought and died in defense of a nation that still denied most of them the right to participate in the political process. Congress, as a result, enacted legislation on November 6, 1919, granting citizenship to Indian veterans of World War I who were not yet citizens.

"BE IT ENACTED . . . that every American Indian who served in the Military or Naval Establishments of the United ... Read more

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C.W. McConaughy/G. P. Kingsley

It was called an “unusual suggestion”.

The suggestion was “supplemental irrigation”, and it was proposed in 1913 by C.W. McConaughy, a grain merchant and mayor of Holdrege, Neb. The plan called for Platte River water to be brought via canals to south-central Nebraska farmland during the spring and fall when river flows were at their highest. The water would be used to soak the soil, allowing crops to draw upon the stored water during the growing season.

“When I have stood and ... Read more

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G. W. Norris/G. E. Johnson

Another influential figure during the efforts to secure federal approval and funds for the project was U.S. Senator George W. Norris of McCook, Nebraska. Senator Norris played a pivotal role in guiding the project through the federal government’s bureaucratic maze. Senator Norris personally intervened on behalf of the Tri-County Project on several occasions. His efforts to convince Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes and President Franklin Roosevelt, with whom he had a good working relationship, that the project was ... Read more

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World War II

Even before the United States was dragged into World War II on December 7, 1941 food was always something that could be sold on a large scale, a strategic commodity. Through the Lend-Lease program established in March of 1941, the United States was already providing critical food to Allied Nations like England, France, China, and the Soviet Union. The Russians particularly enjoyed a canned beef specialty, tushonka millions of which were created at the Omaha Cudahy Plant.

Read ... Read more